Congratulations Kate Macqueen! Kate has just made the Varsity Girl's Hockey team in Hudson, Wisconsin, USA.

It was definitely a very stressful experience, so much pressure during try outs. I'm only a month away from coming home, I can't believe its almost over. (18/12/08)

Kate's host family is dreading the day they have to say goodbye to their new Australian family member after a semester in the country's beautiful north.

Cordelia Prowd went to France in August 2008 for a semester and couldn't be happier:

'Every day, the language gets easier and i am loving my new life in
France. There is so much to learn and enjoy here and I am so glad I
decided to go in this adventure! My family continue to be fantastic
here and I couldn't be happier!'

Eden Butt recently celebrated St. Nicholas day in Belgium. She wrote this short article (in French) to present to WEP. Here is the English translation:

"I want to say thank-you to WEP for everything. My time as an exchange student was great! I learned so many things here, I grew up and I travelled. I made a lot of friends and it is going to be difficult for me to leave. Of course, I had a few problems but thanks to that I am not the same anymore. When I will go back to Australia, I will be more open minded and I will be able to do things I never imagined. Thank-you very much to my co-ordinator and friend Yvette Caro - you are brilliant! Thanks to my natural parents, my host families and WEP. I am no longer the same person as in January 2007."

Aidan Delaney has been in Versaille, France, for just two weeks of his short term program. Here's what he said in a recent email:

"Firstly thank-you for everything you have done for me. This is an awesome experience and I am very grateful to you and everyone at WEP for making it possible. I am having a fantastic time and France is beautiful. The language is not so beautiful as I hardly understand it! Every day it becomes easier though and I can do everything except all the school work. There is a lot of school here but its okay. French is near impossible but helps me alot. History, geography and social science are the best subjects because i can understand almost everything when I copy the notes. Physics, chemistry and maths are complete lost causes! And Spanish is so confusing that I didn't realise when the teacher started writing in English and asked the boy next to me what language it was! I am starting to see the moments everyone talks about from exchanges. The good ones: when the girl beside me pulls me from staring out the window to say 'zee clazz talkz about zoo (you)'! and the not so good ones: when I let my host brother listen to my ipod and my host mother tells me that earphones are banned for children under 10! It wasn't a problem though because my family are absolutely fantastic and couldn't be more perfect for me.

Paris is absolutely amazing! Every building is absolutely gorgeous and the roads bustling with tiny voitures and people riding bikes and couples walking along the Siene with their big coats all snuggled up. Everybody speaks frenglish - it's fantastic (ie.) "Bonjour monsieur, can I take your coat"! On Sunday we drove to Paris, right into Paris because as my host mother said the French are never content and all the transport workers are on strike...we went to the Musée d'Orsay! I saw Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and more including some of the world's most famous paintings! After the boys were very tired so we drove around the Place de la Concorde and along the Champs Elysée and around the Arch de Triomphe. I also saw the (Eiffel) Tower, the Madeline, the Louvre, the Opera Building and Sacre Coeur just to name a few!

To conclude the family and I are having an awesome time and school is trundling along. France is a wonderful place and my French is improving by the minute. Once again thanks to everyone at WEP!"

Kelsey Booth has been in Italy for six weeks, and is already reaping the benefits of being an exchange student:

"I can't believe how much I have changed already, I can already tell that I have matured so much, I never thought doing by an exchange I would learn so much about myself, and at the same time learn about a whole different culture. Its just amazing."

Here's Kelsey with her host mother, Lilly, enjoying the gardens of an ancient Italian castle in Torino.

Jenni Hastings from Brisbane is on a calendar year program in Belgium. She has embraced Belgium life 'to the full' as told in a recent email to WEP:

'Everything is going just absolutely fantastically superb over here. I'm living up the life in beautiful Belgium, with some of the most amazing people in the whole world.

My family is just amazing and I love them all just like my own. I'm known as the crazy middle child and they are all my beautiful Belgians. At the moment my host mum and I are actually painting and arranging the living room.

School is just fantastic and I have so many wonderful friends that I can't count them. A lot of my friends are constantly saying to me, " But how do you know them?" or, "Who was that person you were just speaking to, I've never even seen them before." Being an exchange student does mean that you are more open to everyone I guess and I have so many friends in every grade.

The teachers are just amazing as well, and now I am able to do almost everything within the classes... well almost everything, I had to tell my teacher the other day that I didn't think that I would be able to complete the book analyse that we had due, because I had spent the first half of the book thinking that it was a girl, who was speaking, when actually it was really a guy!

Every week I do a special presentation in front of my class, about the events of the week and a few weeks ago I did a talk on Australia for my English class and because the class found it so interesting I was asked to do it two more times for other grade levels.

Life is just great, fantastically great, that it's hard to think that I will actually be leaving in a few months time. My friends are already telling me that I should just miss the aeroplane, or lose my passport so that I would have to stay here. When saying that I've got to start university next year they all say, "But you can go to university here." It's going to be very hard to leave thats for sure.

The days are just flying by and I can't believe just how lucky I am to experience this amazing adventure of exchange. The friends and family that I have made will be in my life for ever and I will always remember all of the beautiful moments that we spent together. Belgium has become the second home in my heart and I will forever be proud of this little country of mine. The crazy Australian I am true and blue, yet the courageous Belgian is beating in my heart too.'

Jen Hastings - the self proclaimed 'crazy Australian/courageous Belgian':

Sam Stewart is currently in France and talked in a recent email about school.

"School is incredibly incredibly long, sometimes from 8:15am until 6pm. Recess time everybody smokes, and I gasp for air. Lots of friends, and with the compulsory shake of the hand for guys, or kiss on each cheek for the girls, introductions are always long. But the long effort of sociableness has paid off, I'm never bored the weekends anymore, and I got a compliment within the first week of me getting here: I turn heads!"

Here's Sam enjoying a perfect day for skiing in the French Alps:

Ben Sandford wrote an email to the WEP Office about the differences between Argentina and Australia.

"I suppose the hardest part of the immersion process has been the peeling back of 18 years of Australian male emotional repression. It's amazing how different our two cultures are with regards to openness, especially with males. It's quite different seeing some of the guys from my rugby team here cry after winning a close rugby game. And as a point of reference, this wasn't a final or a game of any incredible significance, I'd never seen such an emotional outpouring over something that seemed so minor in my life, but that is simply the nature of life here, there is no stigma associated with men who cry."

Ben enjoying the local Argentine enrivronment:

The vivid colours of some local Argentine market stalls:

Katya Tait who is on program in France at the moment had this to say:

"I have a fantastic class who are great fun and I absolutely feel like one of them. I get along great with my host family, despite a light tendency to make Australian jokes at every turn. However, short of me turning the tables and making jokes about cheese, frogs-legs and funny laughter, these things just have to be endured."

Katya with her host brother.

Eliza O'Callaghan who is currently in the USA said:

"I just wanted to...express my sincere gratitude for doing what you do. You truly make kids dreams come true. I'm having the time of my life. And so far I haven't gotten homesick at all! It just scares me that at some stage it will have to come to an end."

Here's Eliza enjoying the snow in her beloved Kansas!

Amelia Yarwood, who left for Japan in March sent this to the WEP office.

"School has been fun, my friends are all crazy and fun to be with. They are interested in English so I seem to take the role as English teacher often. Unfortunately i am not so adapt at remembering the words that they teach me. But i have improved my Japanese, so i am happy. I can say more than the most simple of phrases and i can understand what people are saying more and more."

Here's a photo of Amelia with some enthusiastic young Japanese students!

Simon Nicholas who left for a year in Argentina in February 2007 sent this email to WEP, family and friends on his time so far.

Hi everybody,

I’ve been in Argentina for just over a week now and am loving it. My host family have been very welcoming and everybody that I’ve met have been very enthusiastic to meet me. At the moment I am on holidays, but on the 15 of March I will go to an Agricultural school. I am enjoying the food and the siestas, but am missing the surf and the beautiful Forster beaches (I am 4 hours away from the nearest ocean beach and the river beach in the neighbouring Rosario has brown dirty water.)

I am living in the town of Casilda, which is considered a small town (and certainly has a small town vibe) but is twice or three times the size of Forster. Casilda is a place were; a car is deemed road worthy until it stops moving, and then simply becomes part of the landscape, dogs by the dozen roam the streets, sit at cafes or out the front of there house casually watching passers by. It is a place were half the town, young and old, will show up at the community hall to watch the castalona (Argentine music) concert or the local futbol match, and on the street everybody says hello (hola) to one another with a handshake, pat on the back and/or a kiss on the cheek. It is a place were Roman Catholicism is the official religion and comes second only to soccer (futbol), and people refuge from the hot and sticky weather until at 12 o’clock at night the town lights up and there are hundreds of people in cafes in the parks or roaming. Casilda is a very relaxed town were socializing seems to be at the centre of their lives. People walking on the street, sitting out side their house people watching, or at cafes, always have a smile on their face and are keen for a laugh.

Lots of love

Simon Nicholas.
Argentina, 6th March 2007